


the rest is silence

by rhllors



Series: born and raised to be killers [3]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: AU, Character Study, Gen, live fast die young careers do it well, scary motherfucker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhllors/pseuds/rhllors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He will go down in history not as Cato, but simply as the boy who ruined something beautiful, who deprived that wretched place of their happy-ever-after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rest is silence

_"I saw somewhere," Clove starts, fiddling with her dangerously sharp knives, wiping the blood of fallen tributes off it, "It used to be said that those who live by the sword, die by the sword." Her voice is singing, and if she wasn't Clove, he would have stabbed her in the neck with her own pretty knives._

_He considers her comment for a short while, staring into their small fire. He knows it cannot be too big or 11, who even Cato could acknowledge was a brute of a tribute, would find them and take his vengeance for the little girl Marvel had killed before 12 had taken a clean shot to his neck._

_"It's lucky, then, that I do not intend to die." he says, and Clove smiles one of her particularly disarming smiles, one that is all teeth and no remorse._

 

Cato shoves, and the star crossed lovers from District 12 tumble down the Cornucopia together, into the snarling mouths of the waiting mutts. 

It takes five minutes for the cannon to sound, and as their screams finally die, he finds a camera and smiles down into it, feeling the blood coat his teeth.

 

He wears a crown of gilded gold, glittering in front of Panem.

 

Cato is at his first party after his crowning, wearing a toga that looks like liquid gold. He expects those that surround him to be clutching swords, or wearing gladiator-esque costumes (the winner always dictates fashion for the season to come), but instead he is surrounded by flames, fire and coal. Their smiles are forced, and so is his.

(he remembers the pained screams of girl 12, the girl who was on fire, as the mutts ripped her body into shreds, tearing and mauling and ripping and--)

He knocks back his drink, and realises that they didn't want him to win--they never wanted him to win. He is brutal, bloody Cato and they wanted _fairytale_. 

 

Haymitch--even he knows Haymitch, everyone knows Haymitch--stumbles towards him, bottle clutched in hand, and presses an accusing finger against his chest.

"You killed it!" he slurs, "We--we had one shot, one shot and you. killed. it."

Cato thinks how easily he could have broken his neck, or snapped his wrist so hard the angle would have been off as the bouncers drag the broken old man out of bar, apologising profusely to the boy who they'd seen murder children on their television.

(he tries not to think about why he didn't)

 

After he fulfills what his letter had demanded, Finnick Odair guys him a drink.

 

He will go down in history not as Cato, but simply as the boy who ruined something beautiful, who deprived that wretched place of their happy-ever-after.

He thinks of Clove, and the horrible irony of it all as he stabs himself in the neck with his sword.

**Author's Note:**

> written for the career tribute fic-a-thon on lj. title from hamlet, act five, scene iii.


End file.
